How can I get rid of already registered spammers?

[ThorstenA]

It's too late. I have a forum with hundreds of bots registered. Now I have to clean it up. Is there any tutorial how to do that? As far as I have found out, there are tutorials to prevent spam registrations. But how about to clean forum from already registered spammers?

[dismas]

Unless you're really bothered by the member count being higher than the number of humans who signed up for your forum in good faith, why bother? Just ban the spammers and be done with it. From everything that I've read, the extra records don't slow down your forum any.

[ThorstenA]

For me it's a security risk. How do you find out who's a spammer and who not?

[Dismounted]

Well, a spammer is a member who continuously posts random messages, so you'd know .

[ThorstenA]

Originally Posted by Dismounted

Well, a spammer is a member who continuously posts random messages, so you'd know .

Problem is that I have hundreds of people registrated. All robots. So there's a list out there with login / password information about how to post in my forum. Do not like this idea.


So I am searching for a solution for this. Banning each member on my own is that time consuming as there is not even a user inline tool - as far as I am aware of.

[Opserty]

Originally Posted by ThorstenA

Problem is that I have hundreds of people registrated. All robots. So there's a list out there with login / password information about how to post in my forum. Do not like this idea.

Well if someone decides to come along and post something then you can just ban them straight away and delete their thread. To be honest though all the boards I have been on don't normally get spammers coming back. Once the bot has posted the thread you don't normally see them again, if you do just do a perm. ban on the account.

So I am searching for a solution for this. Banning each member on my own is that time consuming as there is not even a user inline tool - as far as I am aware of.

Like you said yourself its a bit too late, only advice really would be to ensure that from now you ban the bots as soon as you see their thread. Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think there is a way to identify the bots from real users so I doubt you will be able to find anything to enable you to delete them.

[dismas]

Do you have CAPTCHA enabled to help keep them out in the first place?

[Swampfox]

Originally Posted by dismas

Do you have CAPTCHA enabled to help keep them out in the first place?

Bots decode those easily, easier than humans can probably, I turned it off on my forum since it doesnt do any good

I deleted all the spammers accounts that registered on my forum, they arent that hard to pick out, usually a very strange name, they also will usually have an out of the country IP address and will have selected their default time zone as gmt-12, there is a mod to deny registrations if they select that time zone, since I installed it back in february I have yet to have a spambot register

[Dismounted]

Originally Posted by Swampfox

there is a mod to deny registrations if they select that time zone, since I installed it back in february I have yet to have a spambot register

That would be my hack .

[civileng68]

I have to tell you, I was provided a code on the forums at vbulletin.com that stopped spamming on my forum.

I had uncontrollable spamming but now I dont have a single one.

All I did was add a question to the registration page.

It simply says......................."what is the first letter in the word "Florida"".

They simply answer the question at registration and all spamming is gone!